My Super Mutant Family

My dad was a zombie.

My mom? Even scarier. She was an uber-powerful mutant.

At the crack of dawn, she was already yelling, "Derick Olson! Don't make me come over there! What kind of zombie are you? Glued to your headphones all day—are those audiobooks really that captivating?"

I rolled over in bed and promptly fell right off. Scrambling to my feet, I started tidying up my room in a flash, terrified she might actually make good on her threat.

"Look at Mr. Hoffman next door," she hollered. "He roams the streets day and night, probably gobbled up more brains than you've read books!"

My Dad Is A Zombie

It had been a year since the apocalypse.

A year after the nuclear disaster, it wasn't the plants or animals that mutated first—it was the virus.

Less than ten percent of humanity escaped infection, and most of those unlucky few were picked off early, torn apart by zombies.

Zombies had no brains or senses; they mindlessly attacked anything that moved. But my dad? He was different.

The day the outbreak started, it was just another ordinary day for our family, working in our little grocery store. It was business as usual.

That was, until one of the customers suddenly snapped, wild and crazed, and sunk their teeth into my dad.

Yet, he didn't panic. He pushed my mom and me into the break room, barking orders as he fought off the attacker, "Hurry! Get to the basement storage!"

Then he stayed behind, hiding by the checkout counter. He passed out not long after. When he woke up three days later, he wandered through the empty store before finally calling my mom.

Watching him on the store's security feed, I quickly grabbed the phone from her, my heart pounding. "Dad, hey, listen, I need you to take out the trash by the basement door. And while you're at it, pick up some cans of gas. Oh, and could you check the seafood section? Grab us a fish."

I kept adding items to his list to keep him busy. "Grab some steak, fatty beef slices, shrimp, lettuce, cauliflower, enoki mushrooms…"

By the time the cheese fondue was ready, it was steaming beautifully, filling the room with a tantalizing aroma.

After a few days of careful observation, my mom and I were convinced that my dad was still in there somewhere. His memories were intact, and although the urge to eat people lingered, he somehow managed to keep it under control.

One day, a group showed up to loot our store. My dad? He was livid.

His eyes turned bloodshot within seconds, and his body tensed and ready to react.

But when one of the looters swung a blade and decapitated Ms. Boyd in the produce section, my dad's legs gave out. He collapsed to the floor, pretending to be dead.

Once the looters had finally left, we called him inside. There was no way we were leaving him out there, where the next looter might take him out for good.

As he stepped through the door, my mom scrutinized him, shaking her head. "Your daughter tells me you've become a… What was it? A zombie? Sounds absurd, but I suppose it's better than being dead."

When he stepped in, she stared at him, eyes red. I thought she was about to cry.

But instead, she just sighed. "When I married you, it was because you were handsome. You've aged, grown softer, and lost some hair, but you still looked human. Now? You're just a walking corpse—uglier than sin."

…

We had been confined to that basement for a year.

Every morning, it was the same routine with my mom. "Watch where you're going! How many times do I have to tell you? Stop staring at your phone all day. Look at your cataracts—they're getting worse…"

My dad, shuffling out of the room like a rusted machine, shot me a look of utter despair with his cloudy, dead-fish eyes. He emitted a raspy grunt, sounding almost like a choke, but I understood.

He was grumbling in his own way, "Sweetie, can you believe this? What's your mom even talking about? All zombies have eyes like this, right?"

Since becoming a zombie, his physical reactions had slowed, and his eyesight had deteriorated, but his sense of smell and hearing were incredibly acute.

It was true—zombies' eyes just came with the territory, but my mom continued to insist it was due to excessive screen time. No wonder my dad was frustrated!

Catching my mom's stern look, I quickly suppressed my smile. "Dad says he'll handle Mr. Hoffman later," I interjected swiftly, steering the conversation away.